The 542 survivors from the two opening flights came together in Atlantic City Tuesday – along with a bunch of late entrants – for Day 2 of the 2016 World Poker Tour (WPT) Borgata Winter Poker Open Main Event. After another eight levels, it was Cong Pham who finished the night with a fairly substantial lead, holding 852,000 chips. John-Allan Hinds is next on the leader board, but he is more than 200,000 behind, bagging 638,000.
Cong Pham has won over half a million dollars in his live tournament career, according to TheHendonMob.com tourney database. Most of that actually came right here in this exact event three years ago, when he came in third and won $301,225. From that small sample, one might assume he is an Atlantic City regular, but Pham actually hails from Florida, so of the dozen cashes on his tournament resume, nine came in the Sunshine State. Pham has three total World Poker Tour cashes and one World Series of Poker cash.
If he doesn’t get coolered early, Pham looks like he is on track to nab his fourth career WPT cash. The final player tally topped out at 1,170 registrants for the tournament; payouts will go down to 110th place (as predicted yesterday…pat on the back for this guy). The prize pool easily eclipsed the $3 million guarantee, coming in at $3,748,371. First place will receive $816,246, while the minimum cash will be worth $7,047. Just 150 players remain in the field, so it should not be too long before the money bubble bursts.
Though none are amongst the top ten, there are a large number of former World Poker Tour champions still in the game seeking to add to their trophy case. Anthony Gregg ranks the highest among them with 387,000 chips (for reference, tenth place is 465,000 chips right now). The dozen WPT Championship Club members still alive (in the tournament, that is – let’s not be morbid) include the likes of Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Andy Frankenberger, Asher Conniff, Steve Brecher, and last season’s World Poker Tour Player of the Year, Anthony Zinno.
According to the tournament structure sheet, the plan for Wednesday’s Day 3 is to play from 150 players all the way down to just 27. The festivities begin at noon ET.
2016 World Poker Tour Borgata Winter Poker Open Main Event – Day 2 Chip Leaders
1. Cong Pham – 852,000
2. John-Allan Hinds – 638,000
3. Gianni Arcuri – 613,000
4. Sam Taylor – 560,000
5. David Diaz – 519,000
6. Mukul Pahuja – 493,000
7. John Gale – 492,500
8. Paul Snead – 476,500
9. Barry Hutter – 465,500
10. Daniel Hindin – 465,000